r/web_design • u/JeffTS • 7d ago
Anyone else getting "financing" spam targeting web design businesses?
Is anyone else in the industry suddenly getting spammed daily with emails offering loans, private equity, and financing for your web design business? It's been non-stop for me over the past several weeks to months. I'm probably getting 10-20 emails a day asking if my web design business needs financing, am I the right person to speak to about investing in the business, we can give you a LOC, etc.
I keep flagging them as spam and they just keep showing up either in my inbox or my spam folder. So frustratingly annoying.
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u/classicwfl 7d ago
Constantly; They use our contact form most of the time.
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u/JeffTS 7d ago
The weird thing for me is that they are direct emails. I use Turnstile on my contact form so very little, if any, spam gets through that.
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u/walnutties 7d ago
Where did they get your email address from? Is it plainly displayed on your website, or did you publicly share it on other websites?
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u/JeffTS 7d ago
In nearly 24 years of business, I've never had it listed on my website. I'm guessing that at some point, one of the services I use, or a client's computer, may have been compromised and they scraped up my email from there.
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u/aTomzVins 7d ago
I got a cold call one day. Asked the dude where he got my phone number. He actually told me the online service he used. Checked them out. The service provided some kind of email plugin to people that helped users get client contact details. In return the plugin scraped all their own contact details.
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u/PrettyMuchMediocre 7d ago
Multiple times a day. Same AI generated type of messages. Different fresh domain for every email.
Fairly certain they scraped my info from Linked In. But I do design and media as a side hustle. They don't email me via my side hustle email address, they email my day job address.
It's gotten much worse since the spammers/scammers started using AI. But I dont get how they think sending multiple of the same email from different domains, people and businesses is going to convince people they are legit.
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u/FredFredrickson 7d ago
Yes, multiple times a day, via email, text, and phone calls.
When you run a business, the finance scams roll in.
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u/ImReellySmart 6d ago
Wait, I just read a post in one of the Irish forums (I'm from Ireland) and it was a guy saying he wants to partner with another person and launch a business.
He said he has money to invest into the business, and lots of ideas and business knowledge, but is looking for some in the tech realm to build apps/ software and manage the business day-to-day.
He said he would like to be a less involved partner, who uses his money to support the business, while allowing the other person be more hands on and active.
His post had dozens of people saying they DMd him.
I wonder if he was legit now.
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u/jroberts67 7d ago
This is why you absolutely never put your email address on your website.
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u/FredFredrickson 7d ago
They get your contact info from other sources - like from SoS websites and other public records.
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u/PrettyMuchMediocre 7d ago
Scraping linkedin for me it seems. Don't even have my email address on there but they must just try various standard address conventions at the company website domain.
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u/alphex 7d ago
Daily all year.